I guess it's been a few days since I added to the diary. Hit a brick wall with the QIC/TRAVAN driver for BSD,
seems this would go a lot better if the hardware I was using actually worked. Tough to test this way. I guess I'll
have to postpone the "go fast" parts for my car (a VW that still doesn't go fast enough ;) and get a real tape drive.

Started work on an open source data modelling tool. Still needs a name. I worked for a time with a tool
called
Oorianne (made ERWin look like an etch-a-sketch) and I would really like to reproduce the best parts.
Especially
the ability to intelligently handle Niam models. I'm getting together with Baba (this guy is an absolute data
modelling genius) in a few days (I hope) to go over some of the stuff. The user interface is pretty straight forward,
but the underlying data handling is starting to look a little hairy. I definately will need some help with the back
end
data model (which makes this a recursive project ;) which is where Baba comes in.

I watched a community (not the online variety) begin the painful process of exploding. The Executive Director
of a non-profit org I do some work with was fired a couple of months ago. He was making colour copies of some
original artwork and selling them in an effort to make money for the centre. This would have worked a lot better if
he'd gotten the artist's permission first. I won't comment on the morality of this situation (he was trying to help)
but
he broke the law and left the centre open for a lawsuit, which is definately not acceptable. His replacement was
not well received by the staff and they want the old E.D. back. There was a huge fight with the community being
split, restraining orders, the board of directors being fired, etc. I think this community is very close to dying and
it
makes me absolutely sick that I can't do anything except watch.

At least I can look forward to a quiet day at work today. I might even get some coding done ;)

I can't decide if this should be a diary of my misadventures with code or just a general commentary on my life
(then again, the most meaningful commentary on my life frequently includes misadventures with code). I finally
unloaded responsibility for the last bits of WinCode I wrote, so I can now get on with recreating these beasties as
open source. Although, some of the work I did doesn't really translate out of that world in a meaningful way.

I need more coffee.

Apparently I not only need some coffe, I need to find my certification...;) I've been promoted to observer

Another snowy Sunday. I really suspect I should be living
in Barbados. At least until global warming improves things
in Ottawa.

Learning is never fun ;) I just learned I need to find
somebody who knows more about device drivers in FreeBSD than
I do and is willing to answer questions with more than the
usual "just look at the source from an existing driver and
go from there". Anybody in the Ottawa area that would be
willing to help, I'll buy whatever your favorite drink is
for an opportunity to pick your mind ;) Otherwise this will
probably take substantially longer than I originally
thought. Such is life ;)

Saturdays are obviously a poor choice (at least in my life)
for hacking. Working on device drivers with a hangover is
probably not the best idea I've ever had.

Had an interesting get together with Baba (my SQL and
standards Guru) and some of the people he works with last
night. Terry was there as well (although typically late)
and we had an interesting chat about why most developers
don't seem to want to understand the concept of meta-data.
We also chatted about the impact poorly trained money
chasers (MCSE. CCNA, etc) are having on the industry. He
was amused by the story about the CCNE that set up a DNS as
master for the "." domain then couldn't figure out why it
wouldn't forward queries.

I finally got the base Travan driver to compile. For my
next trick, watch while I pull a rabbit out of my hat ;)
Actually wasn't that hard, it was based mostly on the QIC
driver from the 3.x stream. Now I have to sort out the
underlying connections so it can actually do something. I
want to have it happenning tomorrow, but I think Mon night
is probably more reasonable.

My wife picked up a copy of Phantom Menace for me (which
covered last night until way too late). I felt almost as
excited as I did in 1977 when I first saw episode 4 in the
theatre. I can't believe it was that long ago. That movie
was a real part of my inspiration in getting into computers
in the first place. I even spent some time building
industrial robots in the early 80's because of that movie
(that was actually not the best choice I ever made ;)

Why is it that when a new printer gets plugged into the network everybody feels obligated to print a test
page?
One is more than enough, everything else is paper airplanes.

#endif

On the subject of printing, there has to be a better way. I will admit to being a big fan of "circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is to be used as evidence against us.." (with
apologies to Arlo Guthrie ;) but it's a major pain cleaning off the monitor...which leaves only the tree-ware.

One of the team here found a new (new to us, apparently it's been around for a while) network tool, called
dig.
Wanted to know more about it so we checked for a man page in Solaris...no such beastie (although that's what
he
was running it on). Checked HP-UX and same response. Just because I'm like that, I checked FreeBSD and I
found it ;) Mark up one point for the open source docs! ;)

Zero accomplished yesterday. Staring at a monitor with a sinus headache just doesn't do it in my little
world.
Hopefully I'll get a bunch done tonight after a visit with my 'SQL Guru' at his preferred place for Irish Pints. I'm
always amazed at the depth of this man's knowledge about SQL and programming language semantics in
general.
I keep trying to get him involved in open source (even though he's not a hacker) but he feels that standards are
enough of a contribution.

I really feel as though the planet-wide clue-meter shallowed out while I was sleeping. I saw another post in one
of
the lists I follow (FreeBSD-Hackers, I think) from some would-be journalist asking us to explain why FreeBSD is
better than Linux for his article. This question is not only not answerable, it's completely meaningless without a
context - FreeBSD is/is not better than Linux in what circumstances, what way... You have to look at specific
needs and circumstances and make a decision based on that. Even Win (please don't get your knickers in a
knot,
I'm still an open source type guy) is better than BSD or Linux in some situations. Specifically, for the average
home user with neither the time nor desire (and arguably no ability) to go beyond starting the box, reading email
and browsing the web (or playing games) the burden of learning and administration of anything except Win is
probably excessive. That will probably change in time ( I suspect the majority of people in Advogato are working
to
change that ;), but it is the case right now.

I get into work today to find customer questions that I would never have expected to see. How can someone
who apparently knows so little about network administration have a position of responsibility over a large
corporate
network? The only good news about it was that it moves me back to the end of the queue for cases, so having
resolved the problem quickly, I can get on with important things (like figuring out how to write a BSD device driver
;)

To make absolutely sure I was paying attention, I actually heard there is some consideration of making
bridge
a demonstration sport for the 2002 Olympics. Complete with random tests for performance enhancing drugs. I
really wish I was clever enough to invent this stuff as a joke ;) How is sitting around playing cards a sport?
What
kind of drugs could possibly enhance your performance at bridge? Steroids? Valium (or would that just help you
sit through it)? Caffeine?

I actually have a big piece of my Travan driver for BSD done. I still have a lot of work and a bunch of
implementation type decisions to make before it sees the light of day, but it should be ready for testing outside
my
boxen in a week or so. If I was young, single and still able to function on 2 hours sleep per night for long
stretches
I would probably already be done. This is a nice (but accidental, really! ;) segue into...

My thoughts on hackers and relationships. It's impossible to generalize enough to say what type of person
is
most appropriate for a relationship with a hacker. I've been very happily married for 9 years, and my wife will
never
get beyond very basic computer use (she's not techno-phobic or anything, it's just not something she wants to
do).
She has, however, helped me grow spiritually, which I never really would have done on my own. We are
complementary to each other and, for us, this works really well. The only draw back is that I've had to reduce
my
total hacking time to make sure there is room in my life for the relationship, including our children. Add to that
the
fact that as I've gotten older I need more "down-time" and my productivity as a hacker has definately decreased
since I started 15 years ago. I still manage 2 or 3 hours per night during the week, so I'm not a total write-off. I
even do an occasional all-nighter during the week-end ;) My point (other than the one between my ears) is that
we're individuals and the solutions to these problems have to reflect that. What works for me is not guaranteed
to
work in all cases ( or any case as far as that goes) and what works for someone else cannot be assumed to
work
for me.

Some days it pays to be a pessimist :/ I'm not particularly amused by waking up to see snow in April, but at
least
I wasn't unpleasantly surprised.

On the subject of the Dimwit cert, I was looking at that as more of an indicator of who gets to wear the pointy
hat ;) We all occassionally do Silly Things (TM) and this cert is a good way to highlight them. I
suggest,
however, that it should be a strictly temporary thing. Maybe expiring after a few days.

My fingers apparently don't want to cooperate right now. I guess the third coffee is needed then off to the
book
store to see what new bits of nearly useful information are available.

Spent an interesting couple of hours in the Mess (I left the Military after 10 years to return to my Geek habits ;) a
couple of nights ago talking about what makes a company enlightened in it's handling of employees. I guess, by
most standards I work for a pretty good one. I've certainly worked for some fairly nasty companies in the past.
Here, they didn't even complain when I took an older box and flashed up FreeBSD 3.4 on it. It doesn't do a lot
yet,
beyond basic desktop functions, but a couple of us are trying to convince the powers that be that we should be
allowed to port some of the software around here to it. It's already better behaved with our products then a
platform
we support (guess who...)

I noticed that wrong information on a mailing list (no matter how well intentioned) , although amusing, is
probably more dangerous than no information. It's not nice to panic your customers, although this can provide
"hours of entertainment for the children" ;)

Judging from the number of diary entries in general and the specific comments about the volume of traffic, I
would guess we're about to hit critical mass for something to be done about scalability. I'm not sure how this
should be approcahed, though. It's interesting to read the other diary entries and occassionally comment. The
best approach will probably have to involve some type of personalized filtering, maybe based on who's diary
entries
you like to read. I'll definately have to look at the code for this site and give this some thought. I hope (would
bet)
that a large group of people are doing this already.

Another typical spring day in DisneyLand on the Rideau Canal. I much prefer sunny and warm, but that's
still a
ways into the future. Since I'm going to be staying indoors all day, I have no excuses for not getting a bunch
of stuff done. We'll have to see what happens.

I finally broke down and cleaned out my "junk box" and
discovered and old HP T1000 with some tapes. Popped it into
my FreeBSD 4.0 box and lo and behold, it didn't work ;/
Further investigation reveals this puppy was never supported
under *BSD, although the QIC series was until 3.4 or so.
So,
I spent the day (when I wasn't chasing the kid around the
house ;)) getting started on a Travan driver for FreeBSD.
Of course I'll get the driver written only to find out the
drive was in the junk box because it belonged there. Such
is the life of a hacker.

I've actually given some thought to what I was thinking
about yesterday, an article about the international
standards process. I suspect there might be some
interesting lessons in that particular process for the open
source community. I'll pop it up for comments when I get to
about the third revision and we'll see where it goes from
there.

I was also thinking about the frequent occurence of "hot
air" wars (they don't often make it to flames) over the most
amazingly trivial things. I really believe not having to
discuss these things face to face allows a level of
aggressiveness you wouldn't normally see. Most of the
hackers I know are relatively soft-spoken and articulate yet
put a keyboard in front of them and hit a "Holy Issue" and
the pilot light kicks in... I guess that's a feature of the
on-line community that will be with us for a while. If
there were a way to personalize the process a little more,
this probably wouldn't be an issue.

While poking through the daily diary entries, noted a
couple of things that need commenting on. First a minor
correction...

Schoen - the FreeBSD-QA mailing list started just
before we shipped 3.4, although it didn't get real attention
until just before 4.0. There had been a lot of whining
about the lack of solid testing for stable, one thing led to
another and there we were ;)

Asmodai - Having sat on the committe that wrote
SQL-99
(ISO Joint Technical Committee 1) I guess I should explain a
little about why the storage mechanism for
pre-compiled stored procs isn't covered within the
standards. Standards have to be written to set a minimum
level of support and compliance without imposing (where
possible) limits on extensions and improvements. We felt
(and still believe) that specifying a language should not
include forcing an implementation. By enforcing compiled
compatibility across vendor platforms, we would effectively
be forcing one vendor's methodologies to be the standard.
The reason stored procs are so efficient is they can be
optimized to take advantage of the underlying
implementation. The optimizations for Oracle are
substantially different from those for Sybase because the
underlying database engine is substantially different.
These products also store pre-compiled procedures
differently. This approach also allowed us to permit vendor
extensions to the language (PL/SQL or iSQL) while ensuring a
minimum level of cross platform compatability (mostly
enforced with the fips flag).

There's actually a lot more to the problem than I've
explained here, so maybe I'll do an article on the standards
process over the next couple of weeks to examine this
further. Feel free to pester me about this if I let it slip
a little ;)

I'm having second thoughts about a person to person
messaging system in an environment like Advogato's. Is
there any desire for something like this in the community at
large? Any thoughts? My initial thoughts on this are that
a wholly self-contained messaging area (within Advogato)
would eat tremendous amounts of resources and quickly become
unmanageable. An e-mail link (possibly hidden unless
otherwise flagged by the owner), much like in SourceForge
might be a slightly better idea. It would obviously have to
be done outside the context of "mailto:", else we force a
specific subset of browsers to use it. I'll give this more
thought and continue this <babble> tomorrow.